


Part of the Journey is the End

by alexcat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), mention of Peggy Carter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 14:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18896524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/pseuds/alexcat
Summary: Three times Steve Rogers said goodbye and one time he didn't.





	Part of the Journey is the End

**Author's Note:**

> I was very happy with Endgame. It was sad as hell, but the sacrifices were fitting somehow. Be warned that this is full of spoilers for Endgame.

But the ending always comes at last  
Endings always come too fast  
They come too fast, but they pass too slow  
I love you, and that's all I know  
~~ Jimmy Webb

 

Steve Rogers knew what he was going to do in the end, but he had a few errands to run before the last one. 

The first errand didn’t require any traveling. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked older now, not much, but the lines were there. He had gone through a lot these last few days. The losses were nearly devastating and he’d gladly have given his life in the place of any one of them. He hoped they’d known that. He wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass to tell each of them how he felt about them. 

He knocked on Bucky’s door. 

“Hey, Steve, come on in.” Bucky grinned at him and stepped back to let him enter.

“How you doin’, Buck?” 

Bucky grinned impishly. He’d done that a lot since his return. “Can’t complain, especially for a hundred year old man.” 

“I wanted to talk to you.” 

“You’re going back to her,” Bucky said before he could explain anything at all. “To Peggy.” 

“How did you know?” 

“I remember her… I know how you felt, how she felt. Go for it.” He closed the door and they moved to sit on his small sofa. 

“I don’t think I’m needed here anymore. I want a life. I – I never had that. Neither did you. You deserve a life, too.”

“Steve, I have a lot to atone for. The Winter Soldier did so much evil and damaged so many people. I owe this world a debt and with the rest of the people here, especially Sam and Rhodes, I am going to do my damnedest to make up for some of the things I’ve done. I have debts to pay. That’s my life now.”

“I came to tell you goodbye. If she’ll have me, I won’t be coming back. I am going to replace the stones tomorrow and I have enough of Pym’s particles to make a few more trips. I wanted you to know how much I love you, Buck. You were the first friend I ever had. You taught me about life, how to be a good man.”

Bucky laughed. “You didn’t need any lessons on the good man part, Steve. You always were one of the good guys. I just tried to keep you from getting killed and did my best to get you laid. I don’t think I succeeded in the last one.”

Steve blushed a little. “I finally managed that one on my own. Remember when you tried to teach me to kiss?” 

“Oh God! I was hoping you’d forgotten that.”

When Steve was sixteen, Bucky decided all he needed to be a lady killer was kissing skill. He’d set about to teach him. They’d kissed the backs of their hands as substitutes for mouths and, finally, out of frustration, Bucky had grabbed little Steve and kissed him on the lips. The kiss had lasted longer than either of them meant and they’d both been a little breathless when it was done. Bucky had broken the awkwardness by saying, “Yes! Just like that and they’ll melt in your arms.” 

Back in the present, Steve smiled at Bucky. “I never forgot it. It _was_ my first kiss. You know that I was in love with you then, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, I knew, and I was, God, how do I tell you this? I liked guys and girls both. It wasn’t dangerous to like girls so I went with that. If I hadn’t been worried about what would happen to you, who knows what we might have done?” 

Steve wanted to take Bucky into his arms and kiss him again. He wasn’t any surer of himself now than he was then when it came to Bucky. The last thing he wanted to do on their last evening together was make a mess of things. 

Bucky took care of that. “Stay with me tonight then? Show me what you wanted to do. Give me something to carry forward with me, a memory of loving you.”

Steve bit his lip and the little wrinkle between his eyebrows deepened. “Would it make things harder for you?”

Bucky laughed. “I’m a one armed assassin with a history of murder and mayhem who just came back from being ashes. What could it hurt?” He stood and reached for Steve’s hand with his one hand. Steve took it and melted into Bucky’s embrace, just as he had when he was sixteen. 

This time they didn’t stop or turn away. Steve walked with Bucky into his darkened bedroom and wordlessly, they removed each other’s clothes, hands touching naked skin first then mouths kissing the same skin until they fell together onto the soft bed. 

Neither was a fumbling boy anymore and they pleasured one another with skill and passion combined, until they slept entwined. 

Steve woke and watched Bucky sleep for a long while. He knew this might be the last time he saw his best friend and his first love. He got out of the bed silently and hunted for his clothes. 

“Not going to sneak out, are you?” Bucky asked, his voice still husky with sleepiness. 

“I was going to try.” 

“Not before I tell you I love you. I've loved you for almost all of my life. I’ll love you from now ‘til the end of the line, Steve.” 

Steve paused in his task and kissed Bucky. It was over an hour before they got out of the bed. 

Bucky came to see him off later in the day. They replayed a conversation from a lifetime ago. 

“Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back,” Steve said with a smile. They’d shed their tears and said their goodbyes early in the morning.

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

They hugged and whispered goodbyes again. 

And he was gone. 

*

He chose a time to see her when he knew Natasha would be alone for a while, long enough to say goodbye, to hold her and kiss her one more time. It was after the Snap and she was running her search ops out of Avengers headquarters. The Steve of that time was gone, searching for others out there. He wouldn’t be back for a few days, though he never ventured far from Natasha and home base. 

He changed clothes and walked into her office. 

“What’re you doing here? You said you’d be gone until Thursday.” 

“I came back early.”

She moved from around her desk and hugged him. “Will we ever fix this? I’m tired of being sad all the time.”

He held her tight. He had to fight back the sobs that threatened to surface. He loved her – she had been his best friend and his lover when he had no one else, when she had no one else. She’d held the world together after the Snap. She’d refused to move on, to give up. She fought for her family, the only family she remembered. 

She’d died for her family, too. 

“We will,” he whispered against her ear. “I promise that we will.” 

She clung to him. As always, he was stirred by her soft curves, her scent, by her. He sought her mouth for a kiss. Her kisses were so familiar to him, yet she always surprised him with her passion. Natasha did nothing by half measures. Even her final sacrifice showed that. 

He couldn’t think of that now. He should leave. He’d gotten the kiss he’d come for. 

He found that he couldn’t leave her yet. He needed her, wanted to love her one more time. To tell her somehow in the murmurs of passion that he loved her and always would. 

“Now I know why you came back,” she growled against his cheek with that gorgeously wicked smile she only used when they were about to make love, or when she was about to beat him up when they sparred. 

He picked her up and carried her down the hall to her quarters. 

“Oh, this is new.” She laughed and clung to him. 

Soon, they were in her bed, passion and pleasure rendering speech unnecessary. He wanted to tell her not to go to Vormir, not to sacrifice herself. He knew he couldn’t do that. 

He did tell her he loved her. 

She didn’t move. “What did you say?”

“I love you. I – you’re my best friend and I love you.” 

She looked relieved when he added the best friend part. 

“I know,” she said as he traced circles with his finger around the scar Bucky had given her years before. “I want to know when you’re from. You’re not the Steve who left for DC this morning, Are you?”

“How did you know?” 

“Your hair is a little longer. Your eyes are sadder.”

“I’m not. I can’t say more.”

“I can live with that. Will you stay a little while longer?” She held her arms open to him. 

He went to her, loving her again and again until even he was almost too exhausted to move. Just as he was about to fall asleep, she whispered, “I love you, too, Steve Rogers. I love you, too.” 

He dressed and left before she woke. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t trust himself not to tell her everything. Being with her literally made his heart ache. Leaving was the hardest thing he’d ever done. It would not remain the hardest, he knew. 

He would visit Tony next. 

*

He visited Tony in the time after his return from space, after he discovered a way for them to time travel. He came on a night when he knew no one else was at Avengers Headquarters. Bruce and the rest had gone to the city for dinner and an evening away. Tony meant to go home, but never seemed to leave. There was always one more simulation or one more problem to check out. 

Tony was working when Steve knocked on the door. He barely glanced up from the tablet, saying, “I thought you were going to go with the others into the city.”

Before Steve could say a word, he spoke again. “You’re not that Steve, are you? You’re from the future? Then it works?”

Steve nodded. “It does.” 

“And you’re here why?” 

“I am traveling back in time and I wanted to tell you goodbye.”

“She knows. She’s always known. I don’t know how.”

He knew Tony meant Pepper, meant that she had always known about them being lovers. 

“Not much gets by her, especially when it’s about you.” 

“Too true.” Tony looked rueful for a moment.

Tony also looked tired. He looked that way a lot since Siberia. Steve put a hand out and touched his face. They had not been together since before the fight in Siberia. Seven years ago. God, had it been so long? 

Tony caught the hand and kissed his palm. “I wish I could tell you that I don’t love you.”

“I know.” He stepped even closer, pulled Tony to his feet. 

“I do. God, I do love you.”

“I never stopped loving you either,” Steve whispered as he kissed Tony, pouring all his love and longing into the kiss. 

When their lips parted, Tony’s eyes widened. “Wow! That was some kiss, Cap. I can’t ask you any questions, can I?” 

“Nope. This is not the time.” 

Tony laughed. “You made a time travel joke. And I thought you had no sense of humor.” 

Steve looked at Tony. He loved the wrinkles on Tony’s face when he smiled and laughed. He wanted to trace each one his finger, with kisses, to burn them into his memory to last him the rest of his life. He kissed Tony again instead. 

“Am I to assume this is going to end with us naked?” Tony asked in a casual voice. Steve knew him well enough to understand that the question was anything but casual. 

“God, I hope so. I want you so badly.” Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever felt more needy than he did here and now. He wanted to tell Tony what was going to happen, to beg him not to do it. He knew he couldn’t, knew that Tony had known on some level all along that he was the one to finish it.

“Here?” Tony asked. There was nowhere but the floor for them to stretch out. 

“My room?” Steve asked.

“What if you come back?” 

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Good enough for me, then,” Tony answered. They walked to the room that Steve stayed in, a room that belonged to another Steve, a Steve who hadn’t yet lost Tony or Natasha. He wished, for a moment, that he could go back and be that Steve for a little longer, just one more day, one more minute. 

By the time they closed the door, they were kissing frantically and pulling at one another’s clothing. They left a trail of clothes leading from the door to the bed. Tony pulled Steve on top of him, his eyes never leaving Steve’s.

“I meant those awful things I said, but I don’t care anymore. I love you,” Tony murmured. 

“I know,” Steve told him. Tony opened his mouth to say something else. “Stop talking, Tony.” 

He did. Neither said any real words for quite a while. As they made love, Steve couldn’t hold back his tears. Tony shed a few tears as well as they clung together. Tony seemed to know that this would be their last time together. Afterwards they held each other, saying nothing at all for a very long time.

“Do we win?” Tony asked after a long silence. Steve had thought he might be asleep. 

“You know I can’t tell you that.” Tony lay beside Steve with his head on Steve’s shoulder. Steve kissed his forehead. 

“Can’t blame a guy for asking. So where else are traveling to?” 

“I’m going back to Peggy. If she’ll have me, I’ll stay with her.” 

Tony raised up on one elbow. “She’ll have you. She talked about you all the time with my dad. She loved you, even after all those years.”

“I hope so.” 

“When will you leave?” Tony had settled back into his arms. 

“Before the others return. Before morning.”

“We shouldn’t waste any time then,” Tony kissed Steve’s chest and ran a hand down his belly. 

Steve knew that Tony never really recovered all his strength after he got back from space, but it didn’t matter tonight. This night was all they had. He pulled Tony on top of him. “We shouldn’t waste a moment,” he agreed as he kissed Tony again. 

They said their goodbyes just as the sun was rising. There were no tears. Steve’s tears would come again later, when he cried for them all. 

The last words Steve said to Tony were, “Go save the world.” 

*

Steve had found out where Peggy lived before he left 2023. 

He was dressed in 1945 civvies. This was her street and her house. The front porch light was on and it looked like she was there. 

His heart was pounding like it did when he was small and had asthma. He felt as shy as he had when he was that young, too. He could go back, make a life in 2023, and fight villains for the rest of his life. 

Or he could knock on that door and say hello to the love of his life. 

He took a deep breath and stepped up onto the porch. He could hear the phonograph playing inside the house. He raised his hand and knocked.


End file.
